The best ways to reward your recruiters

Re-thinking the way we reward our recruiters has formed an integral part of my role as Head of Delivery.

The status quo needed to be challenged. Back in the day – and still now in some cases – there were generally two ways to motivate your recruitment teams.

Unfortunately, neither promotes the right environment for successful hiring.

On the one hand, you’ve got your internal recruiters. They’ve traditionally been branded as being part of the HR Function. They’d be paid a set salary and only periodically receive bonuses, much like their co-workers in other areas, such as Finance or IT.

Then there’s your typical agency recruiter. They’re low paid and kept hungry by the carrot of big commission cheques, awarded purely on the number of people they place for a client.

On both counts, this is wrong, wrong, wrong.

The ‘ooomph’ of the role is lost, as well as the personal touch to the process and the opportunity to develop valuable long-term relationships.

Most importantly, the quality of the hiring process suffers as a result and the delivery to the client is not as good as it should be.

The methods described are not the right way to reward your recruiters. Times have changed. Recruitment is a people-centric business and it requires a personal touch and a quality of service guarantee.

Internal recruiters and agency recruiters should be rewarded for smaller milestones and through that real value-add: professional development.

How we reward and incentivise our colleagues

A focus on learning

At BPS World we believe in doing things differently. The smallest gestures, like simply offering regular verbal praise and recognition, go a long way. And not just from line managers but by Directors and other senior management too.

Much like anyone else, recruiters love being told they’re doing a good job.

However, arguably the biggest way we reward our people is by investing in their long-term learning and development.

We offer our recruiters clear career progression and support.

This can involve anything from job shadowing to in-house training by mentors and our Learning and Development team. 

In keeping with our founding principle of ‘people can be more’, we give our recruiters the chance to gain the additional skills they need to earn promotions.

Of course, money is a driver and commissions are great. But employee experience needs to be far more holistic to satisfy the modern recruiter.

Rethinking your KPIs

Let’s be clear, competition within your recruitment team is healthy if harnessed in the right way.

We hold regular competitions, including two I sprung on the floor recently.

We held a Power Hour, with the winner getting their lunch paid for.

And a team event where everyone really pulled together.

Everyone was loud and proud and we saw some great results.

The lowest number of minutes in the Power Hour was 43. The highest caller for the day was on the phone for over four hours which is what some people might complete in a week.

No-one in the office was on the phone for less than one-and-a-half hours.

Ultimately, these competitions drove performance, with everyone hitting the minimum target. Therefore, we treated everyone to an early Friday finish. And the winning team will go an hour earlier than that!

It’s all about the surprise element. This is far more effective than repeating the same incentivises.

Call spins and candidate registering are far better KPIs to look at then the number of CVs you are sending to your clients.

There needs to be a happy medium otherwise the quantity will rise but the quality will fall.

Customer satisfaction is another massive element of the role that should be rewarded. When you do a good job people will spread the word.

We must also remember that It’s not all about the financials, recognition and learning. The feeling you get when you successfully place someone in a job they want to do is extremely rewarding.

New roles can change someone’s life completely and as recruiters we play a massive part in doing this.

We must never lose sight of this aspect.